Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 63.djvu/330

 on by an English man-of-war, to whose foul bottom alone Yaxley owed his escape. He landed at Edinburgh on the 25th, and at once became Darnley's confidant and secretary. Mary also told him all her secrets, and selected him to go to Philip II and place her cause at Philip's disposal and under his protection. Yaxley was, however, quite unable to control his tongue, and within a few days Randolph was able to describe the objects of his mission to the English government. Yaxley meanwhile sailed from Dumbarton on 16 Sept., and, travelling through Flanders, reached Segovia on 20 Oct. He was well received by Philip, and lodged at the house of Gonsalo Perez (Cal. Simancas MSS. i. 497–9). Five days later he set out on his return, with Philip's assurances of support and a considerable sum of money. His vessel was wrecked in the North Sea, and Yaxley's body was cast up on the coast of Northumberland, the money on it being made the subject of a diplomatic dispute between Mary and Elizabeth. The body was removed for burial to Yaxley, to the poor and church of which he left bequests by his will, dated 3 July 1561 (Lansd. MS. 5, art. 32). He married Margaret, third daughter of Sir Henry Hastings of Bramston, Leicestershire (, Leicestershire, iv. 627), but apparently had no issue, and bequeathed his property and interest in Yaxley Hall to his father, who survived him.

[Cal. State Papers, Dom. For. and Spanish, passim; Thorpe's Cal. Scottish State Papers, i. 219; Bain's Cal. 1547–63, p. 186; Acts of the Privy Council, ed. Dasent; Hatfield MSS. vol. i.; Official Return of Members of Parl. i. 380, 393, 396; Foster's Reg. of Gray's Inn; Teulet's Relations Pol. de la France et de l'Espagne avec l'Écosse, 1862, ii. 242; Papiers d'état relatifs à l'Hist. de l'Écosse (Bannatyne Club), ii. 53–5, 92–3; Visitation of Suffolk in Harl. MS. 155, f. 57; Harl. MS. 1169, f. 192; Davy's Suffolk Collections (Addit. MS. 19156, ff. 313–22); Addit. MS. 5524, ff. 38, 39, 40; Rawlinson MS. B. 422, f. 44; Hist. MSS. Comm. 10th Rep. App. iv. 466; Froude's Hist. of England.]  YCKHAM, (fl. 1290?), chronicler [See ]

 YEA, LACY WALTER GILES (1808–1855), colonel, born in Park Row, Bristol, on 20 May 1808, was eldest son of Sir William Walter Yea, second baronet, of Pyrland, near Taunton, Somerset, who married, on 24 June 1805, Anne Heckstetter (d. 1846), youngest daughter of Colonel David Michel of Dulish House, Dorset. The family of Yea held land in the thirteenth century under the abbots of Buckfast(leigh), Devonshire. David Yea, high sheriff of Somerset in 1726, married a daughter of Sir William Lacy of Hartrow. His grandson William was made a baronet in 1759.

Lacy Yea was educated at Eton. Lord Malmesbury mentions a desperate fight he had with a big boy of sixteen, which he won ‘by sheer pluck,’ when he was only thirteen (Memoirs, p. 13). He was commissioned as ensign in the 37th foot on 6 Oct. 1825, obtained an unattached lieutenancy on 19 Dec. 1826, was appointed to the 5th foot on 13 March 1827, and exchanged to the 7th (royal fusiliers) on 13 March 1828. He served with it in the Mediterranean and America, becoming captain 30 Dec. 1836, major on 3 June 1842, and lieutenant-colonel on 9 Aug. 1850. In 1854 he went out in command of it to Turkey and the Crimea. ‘A man of an onward, fiery, violent nature,’ he was ‘so rough an enforcer of discipline that he had never been much liked in peace time by those who had to obey him’ (, ii. 334, 423). He himself wrote to his sister just before the battle of the Alma: ‘The Russians are before me and my own men are behind me, so I don't think you will ever see me again’ (, p. 64).

At the Alma his regiment was on the right of the light division, and became engaged with the left wing of the Kazan regiment, a deep column of fifteen hundred men. The fusiliers, ‘a loose-knotted chain of six or seven hundred light infantrymen without formation,’ held their own against this column when the rest of Codrington's brigade had fallen back, and at length forced it to give way. This result was largely due to Yea's personal exertions: ‘his dark eyes yielded fire, and all the while from his deep-chiselled merciless lips there pealed the thunder of imprecation and command’ (, ii. 424–7, 552–7). The regiment lost twelve officers and more than two hundred men. Yea received a letter of hearty congratulation from Sir Edward Blakeney, who had led the regiment at Albuera, and was now its colonel (, p. 180).

At Inkerman the fusiliers, as part of Codrington's brigade, were on the slope of Victoria ridge, acting on the right flank of the Russians, but not very severely engaged. Yea was mentioned in despatches of 28 Sept. and 11 Nov., and was made brevet-colonel on 28 Nov. During the hardships of the winter his care of his men was exemplary. ‘They were the first who had hospital huts. When other regiments were in need of every comfort, and almost of every necessary, the